The BCCI announced their list of annual central contracts on Thursday with the payment structure under Grades A+, A, B and C.
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BCCI’s list of annual contracts does not include several prominent names who have made a mark in international cricket in the last year like Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan and T Natarajan. Prithvi Shaw, who was also in the Australia touring party, does not find a place in the contract list.
BCCI makes an announcement on the centrally contracted players with different pay grades every year. The highest grade is A+ which has a pay grade of INR 7 crore per year. Players in Grade A get INR 5 crores as while Grade B players are given INR 3 crores and Grade C gets INR 1 crore.
According to the latest release, these players slot into the different pay structures:
Players and grades in BCCI contracts for the season
Grade A+: Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah
Grade A: Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Mohammad Shami, Ishant Sharma, Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya.
Grade B: Wriddhiman Saha, Umesh Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Shardul Thakur, Mayank Agarwal.
Grade C: Kuldeep Yadav, Navdeep Saini, Deepak Chahar, Shubman Gill, Hanuma Vihari, Axar Patel, Shreyas Iyer, Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Mohammad Siraj.
Why are some prominent names missing?
The list given has quite a few notable omissions and this is primarily because they fail to meet the minimum criteria set. A player has to play a minimum of three Tests or eight ODIs or 10 T20Is during the course of a season to meet the minimum requirement to get a contract. Natarajan, for instance, played all three formats on the tour of Australia but still did not meet the criteria as he has played a solitary Test, two ODIs, and four T20Is in all since that tour. Suryakumar, Shaw, Kishan and Krunal Pandya also miss out as a result of this criteria.
Will these players be without a contract for the entire season?
No, the players can still meet the criteria by September 2021 and get their BCCI contracts for the season, however payment will be on a pro-rata basis. It will, however, be difficult for these players as India are scheduled to play all Tests – the World Test Championship and the five England Tests – after the IPL.
